


nothing but joy y'all

by thisstableground



Series: less than ninety degrees [29]
Category: Do No Harm (TV), In the Heights - Miranda/Hudes
Genre: (Only mildly its more about the coffee than the being ill), Coffee, Multi, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:22:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27869114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisstableground/pseuds/thisstableground
Summary: Usnavi's no quitter, which is why two weeks of no caffeine is really not going to go great for him.
Relationships: Ruben Marcado/Usnavi (In the Heights)/Vanessa (In the Heights)
Series: less than ninety degrees [29]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/713601
Comments: 17
Kudos: 23





	nothing but joy y'all

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: somehow i haven't written a UVR fic since m a y? this year truly has been out of whack. i missed them deeply. here's usnavi having a terrible week because i wanted to write something fun and dumb to get me back into things.
> 
> (content warning for emetophobia, there is some mentions of vomiting and usnavi basically spends the whole fic vaguely nauseous, though i tried not to be too gross with it)

“What’s the score, boys?” Vanessa calls to Usnavi and Ruben as they come in.

“Better than I expected,” Usnavi says. “After Ruben’s whole spiel about sepsis yesterday I was convinced I’d be coming home with my arm in a box.”

Ruben pauses in taking his jacket off to give Usnavi a wounded look. “I was explaining why it probably _wasn’t_ sepsis. It was supposed to be _comforting._ ”

“A-plus for effort, hermoso. Anyway, the doctor said it was just a little rash.”

“Just a little highly contagious impetigo,” Ruben clarifies, and Vanessa veers away sharply from where she was about to kiss Usnavi hello. “Yeah, we need to wash everything.”

“It ain’t catching once I’ve been on the antibiotics two days, he said.” Usnavi puts the paper pharmacy bag down on the arm of the sofa, and strikes a model pose. “You can look but you can’t touch. Keep those wandering hands to yourself for once, García.”

“No prometo nada.” Vanessa takes out the pill packet to read the back, pulling a face. “I had to take antibiotics once and they wrecked my whole shop.”

Ruben nods. “It’s kind of a scorched earth approach.”

“No kidding. I was on them for a UTI and then spent two weeks shitting my brains out and I was like, I don’t feel like I improved my bathroom situation any here.”

“Who taught you two how to talk to sick people? Damn.” Usnavi crinkles his brow. The doctor had mentioned side effects but Usnavi was too busy being happy that the alarmingly fast-spreading rash currently taking up real estate on his left arm hadn’t been a zombie infection to listen properly. But, no importa, he has a strong stomach and Ruben’s already paid for the meds, so he pops a pill out of the packaging, raises it in the air and says, “¡salud!”, washing it down with the last of his soda.

***

The sound of running water cutting off, the clatter of a toothbrush being put back in a cup, and Ruben says, “nausea, huh?”

“No comment,” Usnavi answers, pressing his forehead harder against the cold tile of the bathroom floor.

Ruben comes to crouch next to him, holding his arm open like an invitation. “Does it help to know that at least you aren’t contagious any more?”

“Un poco.” Usnavi struggles upright to lean against Ruben's side, grateful for the casual touch he’s been missing for the past two days. “Does that mean I can stop taking the pills now?”

He feels Ruben draw himself up indignantly and begin squawking “antibiOTIC resistance-“, a lecture cut thankfully short by Usnavi’s stomach having some negative feedback about their new sitting position which Usnavi would call quick thinking on his part if he wasn’t pretty sure he’d just vomited all his thoughts out through his nose.

Ruben rubs his back in soothing circles, and once it’s over he fluffs Usnavi’s hair up with his fingers. “Even your mohawk looks sad,” he says.

“No sé qué ha pasado,” Usnavi complains. “I was fine when I woke up and then I had breakfast and boom! Hurltown, population eugh.”

“Maybe it was something you ate.”

“But I just had the usual.”

“Coffee isn’t a meal, Usnavi,” Ruben says severely. “And it probably isn’t the best idea if you’ve got an upset stomach.”

“Coffee would never betray me like this,” Usnavi protests.

“Hmm.” Carefully, Ruben eases out from under Usnavi, leaning him against the wall for stability like he’s setting down a bike. “I have to go before I miss my train, but Vanessa’s working from the spare room today if you need her. Rest up. Eat some real food. I love you.”

“You’re the only doctor I ever wanna listen to,” Usnavi tells him.

Ruben blushes and grins and says, “and cut down on the caffeine.”

“Except for that part,” Usnavi amends, and lays back down.

**

Usnavi sleeps first on the bathroom floor then transfers to couch for a while, tentatively nibbles a pop-tart, and by half ten is thoroughly exhausted by following Ruben’s instructions so stringently for so long so he makes two coffees, takes them both to the spare room study - the sign from his bodega is hung up on it, flipped to _closed/cerrado -_ and knocks clumsily on the door with his elbow.

“Roooom service,” he sings.

The murmur of wheels across floorboards rumbles up to the door and Vanessa opens it still in her office chair, pulling her headset down to hang around her neck. Usnavi hands her one of the cups then rolls her seat back into place behind the desk with his hip.

“Thanks, honey.” She leans up to let him kiss her cheek, taps the second mug in his hand with a dull clunk noise. “Dr Marcado would disapprove, ain’t this why you’ve been sick all day?

"He just said to cut down, which I have," Usnavi says. "This is only my second. I don't think it was the coffee made me sick anyways, that was just a coincidence."

"Uh-huh. Hope it tastes as good coming back up as it did going down," Vanessa says, putting her headset back on.

20 minutes later, when Usnavi is getting reaquainted with what the inside of their toilet looks like for the second time that day, Vanessa shows up outside the bathroom and says, "well would you look at this _coincidence_."

Usnavi coughs pathetically and says, "if you say anything even _close_ to 'I told you so'..."

"What are you gonna do, be clammy at me? You want me to get you anything?"

"No, gracias, querida, I’m okay."

"¿Cierto? Juice, crackers?" She pauses. "Want me to get you some _decaf_?"

Usnavi stretches his leg out as far as he can without having to get up to push at the door with the very tips of his toes, closing it on Vanessa's wide and wickedly innocent smile.

***

"It just ain’t fair," Usnavi says, staring into his decaf as broodingly as he can manage. It's been eight hours and counting since his second ill-fated morning cup of joe and believe him, he _has_ been counting. "My one vice, ripped away from me in my hour of greatest need. Betrayed by my own digestive system."

"That’s bodies for you," Ruben says serenely.

"Not mine," Usnavi disagrees. "Caffeine dont affect me at all usually, por qué would it start ahora?"

"I have seen him _fully_ fall asleep fifteen minutes after a double shot," Vanessa confirms.

"That doesn’t mean it isn’t affecting him," Ruben says. He does this thing, sometimes, that makes Usnavi think of an interactive display in a museum, where you press a Tell Me More button and everything lights up in a flurry of movement and a torrent of information through the little speaker. It’s very cute. "Caffeine’s a stimulant, right? Well, so are most ADHD medications. A stimulant might give a neurotypical person a buzz, but for someone with ADHD who doesn't naturally produce or regulate dopamine the same way, it helps with focus and mood and concentration, it levels you out. Usnavi, you can nap after coffee maybe partly because you’ve developed a bit of a tolerance, but also because chances are the stimulant makes your brain feel calmer so you can actually relax. It isn’t going to be nearly as targeted as a prescription but in the absence of any other treatment, it makes sense that you’d develop a habit for something that might provide some relief. You’re not just addicted to it, you’re self-medicating."

“What I’m hearing there,” Usnavi says, “is that as well as being itchy and sick and having caffeine withdrawal, I’m also gonna be extra ADHD until these damn antibiotics are done with.” Ruben gives an apologetic grimace of confirmation. “Hnng. Can I start smoking again?"

"No you cannot," Vanessa says.

"Nicotine's a stimulant too," Ruben says. "You’ll probably run into the same problem. Drink your decaf."

"But it tastes like lies." Usnavi does not drink his decaf; instead, he rests his chiin on the table watching the other two so casually slurping away at their own fully caffeinated drinks, not a care in the world or a grumble in the guts. These kids don’t know how lucky they have it. He sighs.

"It’s really hard to relax when you’re making that face at me," Vanessa informs him.

Usnavi sighs louder, and makes his eyebrows sadder. Ruben, after a moment of thought, takes his sweater off and covers Usnavi’s entire head with it. Usnavi doesn’t try to stop him.

"This feels right," he says morosely.

***

“Morning,” Vanessa says.

“I didn’t _ask_ it to be,” Usnavi replies, disgruntled. It’s a disorienting experience waking up later than Vanessa, but he is so tired. He once worked a fifteen hour solo shift and he’s pretty sure he wasn’t this tired afterwards. He picks up his antibiotics off the counter and says, “blrlrgh.”

“I just got such a look at what it must be like to live with me,” Vanessa tells Ruben.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Ruben murmurs, and adds, “are you back at work today, Usnavi?”

Usnavi makes a noise of soulfully feral despair deep down in his chest.

“Okay, now I see it,” Ruben says to Vanessa.

It isn’t that Usnavi doesn’t like his job. Sort of a strange transition going from being boss and manager and owner of his own place to one of Dunkin on Broadway and 149th’s finest, and he’s not gonna pretend he ever had big dreams of being a minimum wage barista, but he enjoys it well enough. After five months of unemployment he was just happy to have any job at all. Even happier to not get fired after taking time off this week. His manager had just sighed and said “just find someone else to switch shifts with, it ain’t that deep,” when he’d called in frantic with apologies: Usnavi has no idea what a normal amount of sick days is when you’re working for someone else. Four days of closed bodega would’ve had him up all night trying desperately to find a way to make up the losses somewhere.

But even though Usnavi’s share of the rent now is always a little less by necessity he doesn’t _like_ that he can’t contribute equally, so it’s back to work ASAP as always, and spending all day serving coffee to other people is not the kind of distraction he wants right now. Even the smell of it as he walks through the door turns his stomach with the memory of previous sickness. He has to sit down in the back for a dizzy minute until he stops feeling like he’s on a stormy sea, sipping at a Sprite because apparently that's all his stupid body can tolerate and waving off the concern of his coworkers until he can get on with work.

In spite of that and the ever-present rising feeling hovering in the back of his throat, the idea creeps in over the morning that maybe if he just had a _small_ coffee it wouldn’t hurt. It might even help get rid of this withdrawal headache if he has just a very tiny one? A teeny tiny little latte?

“Nope,” says his shift manager Nate, taking the paper cup out of Usnavi’s hand before he can even finish justifying himself out loud.

“It’s basically all milk,” Usnavi pleads. Nate remains, like always, an implacable rock of a man. “Nate! I thought we could hang!”

“You _know_ we can always hang, but one, if you’re out for the count it’s just me and Rowan here, we ain’t got enough hands as it is. And two...your girlfriend is scary, man. What if she comes here and yells at us for letting you get yourself sick?”

“Vanessa? She can yell at me all day,” Rowan says, bumping Nate out of the way with their elbow to get to the milk frother.

“Hey now, this triangle don’t need no more sides,” Usnavi says. “Only people she’s gonna be yelling at is me and my boy.”

“I know and totally respect that,” Rowan says. “But sometimes, gay crying?” They make a gesture like, _have you considered that?_

“Sometimes,” Usnavi agrees. “Can you get me a latte?”

“No.”

“I hate this job,” Usnavi says.

***

The absolute last thing Usnavi feels like doing in his state is dragging his sickly listless ass around a supermarket, but they've got hungry college kids to feed tonight and he finishes work first so that's where he's going. At least it's for a good cause: feeding Sonny and getting to hear all his college stories in return. It was a relief to Usnavi that after a month of settling in Sonny's finding more time freed up now to drop round to their place after class. He hasn't wanted to be too much of a helicopter cousin when he knows it's a busy time and Sonny's gotta make friends and live his own life, but he still misses having the kid by his side day after day. 

Paola - new to New York, a lot less outgoing than Sonny and, Usnavi would guess, taking any chance she can to check in on her wayward big brother now she's so nearby - has been making pretty regular visits too, so inevitably there was a day that they both showed up. Before Usnavi could introduce them Paola had pointed at Sonny and said, "wait, you're _Usnavi's_ Sonny?" 

Sonny had raised both arms in the air like _what the fuuuck_ and said, "oh, you're Paola!"

"You guys know each other already?"

"We're both taking Civil Liberties this semester, we've said hi but I didn't know she was Ruben's _sister,_ someone coulda told me!"

"I told you she was at NYU!" Ruben said. "I didn't realize you'd be doing any of the same classes."

"I more know _of_ Sonny than actually knowing him, " Paola said. "He has a lot of opinions in class."

Just like with Ruben, her voice has that inscrutable dry edge that means it's impossible to tell a muted compliment from a subtle insult - it's usually both - but she'd looked genuinely pleased and nodded when Sonny said "we'll have to study group together or something! I mean, we're basically related!"

"God help us all," Ruben had said, but he was smiling too; Usnavi knows he's been worried in a million different directions about how Paola will adjust at college, coming so soon on the heels of all the shit their family's been through this past couple of years, and at least with Sonny there there's a friendly face who knows their whole situation. Usnavi was just as delighted: it's small, wonderful happenstance like this which really makes him happier than anything. All their lives have changed a whole lot so quickly, but the pieces that matter are still always finding new ways to connect together. It makes it easier not to miss the past quite so much, even with Sonny at college and the store gone.

Though damn, does he miss his bodega particularly fiercely in this moment: he still hasn't adjusted to honest-to-god grocery shopping on the regular in a big-ass store. Even with the relaxing roar of his headphones turned up earsplittingly loud to drown out the sounds of reality, everything around him still feels like chaos. Ruben might have a point about the self-medicating: Usnavi's sure he's never been quite so aware of other people and how slowly they move and how directly in front of where he wants to go they always are, the lights are piercingly bright against the low thrum of headache he's been nursing for days, he falls into an echoing vortex of brain static while staring intently into the cheese section for an undetermined length of time until he’s nudged out of it by someone trying to reach past him to get at the low-moisture mozarella. Between all of that and resisting temptation all day at work his mental defences are thoroughly busted, so there’s nothing left in him to resist with by the time he gets back home and immediately notices that Ruben’s mug from this morning is still on the table, temptingly half full.

Usnavi wishes he could say he at least deliberates it. He doesn't even break step to take his headphones off, striding in to pick it up and takes a large relieved gulp. It’s cold, in that unintentional room temperature way, and there's no milk, but it’s still the best thing he’s put in his body for in days. He imagines he can feel the energy dancing through his system already, shouting _wepa_ , waking up all the sleepiest places in his brain from hibernation.

“I miss this,” he says out loud and then nearly dies on the spot when someone standing behind him unhooks his headphones from his ears. He spins around to be met by two judging pairs of teenage eyes. “Sonny! Paola! What are you doing here already?”

“Class finished early, we've been here twenty minutes,” Sonny says. He wiggles at accusing finger at Usnavi’s drink. “You wanna talk about this situation, amigo?”

“It’s just...mine from this morning. Es decaf.”

Sonny leans over to get a better look and raises a disdainful brow. “No cousin of mine looking so happy about day old _black_ decaf.”

“In a mug that says _if you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the precipitate_ ,” Paola adds.

“You’re better than this, Usnavi.” Sonny makes a grab for the drink.

“No I’m not!” He grips as tightly as he can but Sonny finally wrestles it away from him, and Usnavi lets out a despairing "nooo" as Sonny empties the precious contents into the kitchen sink. The aftertaste of it in his mouth lingers accusingly to reminds him of what he’s been missing all this time.

“This is the saddest thing I’ve ever seen,” Paola says.

***

Vanessa yawns so loud her jaw cracks and makes an irritable exhaling noise. “I can’t believe you gave Paola all our coffee yesterday, Ruben.”

“It’s clearly too much of a temptation for him if we keep it in the apartment,” Ruben says. His fingers are tapping extremely quickly against the case of his laptop.

“So now we all gotta be deprived just because _you_ have no self control.” She pokes Usnavi in the side.

“Por favor no I’ll die,” he groans, clutching the empty trashcan that he’s been clinging onto all morning in case of emergency a little tighter. He didn't even drink anything stupid today. The universe is punishing him for his good choices.

"Sorry, baby."

"S'all bueno. I'm sorry you gotta suffer because of me. The solidarity is appreciated."

"I guess I don’t mind, so long as you don’t mind me being permanent morning Vanessa for the next week."

"How about we go get lunch?" Ruben suggests, shutting his laptop with an aggressive bang. He cringes and lifts the screen quickly to check it survived, closing it a lot more cautiously the second time. "Maybe a walk will help. We can bring you something home if you aren’t up to it, Usnavi."

"Me quedo aquí, someone’s gotta babysit this trash can," Usnavi declines. When they’re gone he curls back up on the sofa, uncomfortable inside his dumb disintegrating body but very comfortable inside the t-shirt he stole from Ruben and the sweatpants he stole from Vanessa, dozing softly until the door opens again however long later. "Hey there," he says, rubbing the sleep haze from his eyes. "Good lunch?"

Vanessa says, "it was fine," and wanders over to the kitchen to put her bag of groceries down, which Usnavi wouldn't think anything of if it weren't for how Ruben, on about a five second delay, says "yes, lunch was nice!" very loudly and Usnavi thinks, _hmmm._

He pulls Ruben towards him on the pretense of a kiss, and his suspicions are confirmed as soon as their lips press together. “Cinnamon,” he accuses. “I knew it! You went for coff-- wait, hold on, one more.” He breaks off to give Ruben a second kiss and then a third just for good luck. “You thought you'd get away with it, huh?”

Ruben goes full caught in the cookie jar round eyes, and presses a fingertip to his faintly smiling mouth like he’s securing the feeling of the kiss to them. “Vanessa was grouchy,” he says. “We had to. For the safety of the city.”

Usnavi grabs Vanessa to give her a betrayed but affectionate kiss too. “And you said _I_ was the one with no self control.”

“You still are,” she says, wiggling out of his arms impatiently. “Anyway, stop your whining, I got you a present.”

Usnavi brightens up. “A present? ¿Por mí? Is it food?”

"Sorta." She begins to unpack the contents of her bag onto the kitchen worktop – milk, a jar of Nutella, dark chocolate, a can of whipped cream. "There are only three worthwhile things my mom ever taught me. One is how to jump rope. Two is how to open a beer bottle with my teeth. And _three_ is how to make a hot chocolate so good it’ll make you forget caffeine even exists."

"Bold claims." He picks up his trash can and leans his elbows on it, watching her as she lights one of the burners and sets a pan over it, pours in the milk. "How come I never seen you make this oh so incredible hot chocolate before, then?"

"I forgot all about it till today. We only made it when I was a really little kid, I remember on snow days sometimes we’d-" she cuts herself off, frowning away her own nostalgia. "Well, it's good, anyhow. Mom used to put bourbon in hers but I ain’t trying to make you no sicker, so we’re keeping it virgin."

"I think that was my yearbook quote," Ruben says, coming to join them. "Can I have one too?"

Once she's poured out three mugs and brought them to the table, Vanessa finishes them off with a mountain of whipped cream and a flourish and says, "enjoy."

Usnavi thinks he can be forgiven for being little trepidatious considering Vanessa's track record with hot drinks i.e. being godawful at them, so at the first taste once he manages to get past all the cream he makes a pleasantly surprised “ooh!”

"Told you," Vanessa says.

 ** _"_** _Oooh_!" Usnavi says, again. He's been silently protesting the decaf by drinking Sprite instead but the sheer pleasure of finally drinking something warm curls up happily in his in his chest, and even if it had been bad he would have loved that Vanessa made it for him, but as it happens it tastes like drinking liquid Nutella with a light dusting of cinnamon and nutmehh, and perhaps most importantly it is basically entirely sugar, which scratches an itch right in that part of his brain that’s constantly clamouring for good sensations and happy vibes. It's so good that he genuinely needs to lie down afterwards to recuperate emotionally. He drags Vanessa and Ruben with him for cuddling purposes, where they stay until around half an hour later Usnavi realizes the true miracle, which is that he isn't even feeling particularly nauseous right now.

"I am, a bit," Ruben says. "It was sweet enough to kill a man."

"Big Vanessa Garcia energy, " Usnavi says, and smiles over at her. "That’s some fuckin' good hot chocolate, mi amor. Can you teach me how to make it?"

***

"I turned him into a new kind of monster," Vanessa says, watching Usnavi prepare his fourth hot chocolate of the evening. "I should’ve kept my family secrets."

"Think of it as tapering off," Ruben suggests. "We get him from six coffees a day to six hot chocolates, then work him down to five, and in a decade or two he might actually start drinking water."

"Or he'll be a sugar junkie and all his teeth will fall out."

"Probably that, yeah."

Usnavi ignores them both in favor of squirting a generous swirl of whipped cream into his mouth straight from the can.

***

It’s a cruel extra kick while he's down that even though he’s practically been staring at the calendar waiting till he finishes his antibiotics course, it takes another three days after that for his stomach to even start to settle. It still isn't great, but the room wasn't spinning when he woke up so he decides it'll have to be good enough; there’s only so much patience a man can have and Usnavi’s supply of that ended about two weeks and three days ago so whether his system is prepared or not he is not waiting one second more to quit on quitting.

"That's fair," Ruben says. "We can't keep up with the hot chocolate, anyway, I’m worried everyone at the new bodega thinks we’re doing something weird with all the whipped cream and Nutella we keep buying."

"Well we _could've_ been, if I'd known weird stuff was an option," Vanessa says.

"Maybe later." Ruben shoots a smirk over at Usnavi where is reverently spooning out coffee grounds and says, "do you still remember how to make cafe con leche, after all this time ?"

"What kinda question is that?" Usnavi scoffs. His brief fling with the hot chocolate was as much from missing the ritual of making it as for the drink itself, but nothing feels as good as a lifetime of habit. Never in a million years would he forget it, making café his way, his dad’s way, not how he has to at work, and not _decaf._ His mug, his kitchen, his cup warming both his hands. He carries it to the sofa when it's ready, slowly like he's carrying a precious and fragile gem and then sits and inhales the steam, somehow reluctant to take the first sip even though he’s been waiting for what feels like eternity. "Wouldn’t it be wild," he says, "if I just hate coffee now? Like if these two weeks away are what make me realize I never even liked it all along and then I start drinking tea every day."

"Yeah, the wildest," Vanessa says. "Drink it already."

Usnavi chances a taste, swishes it slowly around his mouth before he swallows and licking his lips afterwards where the sweetness of the sugar lingers. The other two are watching him. "Well?" Ruben asks, caught up in the anticipation despite their teasing.

"I am... _so_ fucking good at coffee," Usnavi says. "I can see why you both fell in love with me."

**Author's Note:**

> please comment if you liked it thank you!


End file.
